Kyle Jean-Baptiste had made a name for himself as the first African-American to play the role of Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables'' on Broadway. On Friday, the 21-year-old actor clambered onto the fourth-floor fire escape of an apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Mr. Jean-Baptiste had just wrapped up his final scheduled performance as Valjean and was to leave the show on Sept. 6 to join the new Broadway production of "The Color Purple." The police said, Mr. Jean-Baptiste stood up out on the fire escape, slipped and fell backward onto the street below and died. His death "appeared to be accidental,'' police added.
"The amazing thing is not that it happened; the amazing thing is that it didn't happen with greater frequency until now,'' said William B. Helmreich, a sociology professor at City College. "This tragedy occurred because not enough attention is given to the dangers inherent in sitting on fire escapes,'' he said.
As reported by The New York Times, city rules require building owners to keep them in good repair and prohibit residents from obstructing them with plants, bikes, or anything else. "Probably people have been conceived on fire escapes, for all we know, but it was also just a place to talk and get away from parents, things like that," said Kenneth T. Jackson, a Columbia University history professor. With a fewer people now crowding the buildings, "we don't have to go out on a fire escape to get a moment of privacy,'' Jackson said. He himself said has never tried his own apartment's fire escape.
New York Curbed reported that following the tragic death of actor Kyle Jean-Baptiste, the spotlight is once again focused on New York City's iconic fire escapes. The rising Broadway star had recently finished a run as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. On Friday, the 21-year-old actor fell to his death from a fourth-floor fire escape on an apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Police determined the death as an accident.
